1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a destination retrieval apparatus, a communication apparatus and a method for retrieving a destination. The destination retrieval apparatus displays candidates for a destination and lets a user select from the candidates a destination he/she needs. The communication apparatus is equipped with the destination retrieval apparatus, and specifies a destination by using the destination retrieval device and transmits data to the specified destination.
2. Description of Related Art
Transmission process is performed by inputting a destination dial number in the case of a G3 facsimile apparatus, and by inputting a destination e-mail address in the case of an Internet facsimile apparatus. In order to save such time-consuming effort as direct input of destination dial numbers or e-mail addresses, there have been facsimile apparatuses equipped with an electronic phonebook function, which allows a user to previously store a dial number or an e-mail address and a name for each destination, and to specify a destination dial number or a destination e-mail address by selecting the destination he/she needs from the destination names displayed on the display.
For facsimile apparatuses equipped with such an electronic phonebook function, when the number of destinations stored in the phonebook is large, it takes time to search the one destination the user needs. To reduce such search time, it is usual to adapt a configuration in which the number of candidates for a destination is narrowed down according to the initial characters of destination names. Other known configurations include the one where a character string inputted from a control panel is used as a key word to narrow down the number of the destinations shown on the display (see Related Art 1, for example), and the one where destinations are displayed according to a predetermined order based on, for example, the number of selections in the past, alphabetical order, number of transmission failures, distance, and the like (see Related Art 2, for example).    [Related Art 1] Japanese Laid Open Publication 2002-44341 (FIG. 11)    [Related Art 2] Japanese Laid Open Publication 2000-278501 (FIGS. 3 and 5)
However, as in the conventional technology described above, in the configuration of narrowing down the number of candidates for a destination based on a character string, the input of the character string is troublesome; and, in the configuration of displaying destinations according to a particular order, it is not always possible to quickly locate a destination the user needs by using the specified order, and there are drawbacks in the aspect of being easy to use. In the usual configuration of narrowing down the number of candidates according to the initial characters of destination names, the search condition used in the process of narrowing down the number of candidates is easy to understand and the method is easy to use.
However, in the configuration of narrowing down the number of candidates according to the initial characters of destination names, the number of candidates that match the search condition in the process of narrowing down the number of candidates is often large. When this happens, the Up key, Down key, and other keys are used to display the next candidate and find the destination that the user needs. In this case, after striking a key for specifying an initial character, which is used as the search condition in the process of narrowing down the number of candidates, it is necessary to strike a different key in order to display the next candidate; this is not satisfactory in the aspect of being easy to use.